Page 95 of Mortal Queens

Her eyes changed, and for the first time, she didn’t look as if she’d lost her mind. She looked as if she thought I had. “This realm is a lie. It’s a trap. We have to leave it and never come back.” She opened her clenched fist. “I have my own plan.”

A watch sat in her hand that would have been identical to the one I’d acquired from Illusion Point, except hers was silver where mine was gold, the band made of rosy leather.

I looked up at her. “I have one of those too. It stops time.”

Her hands clutched it, her knuckles bone white. “This one is different.” There was a dangerous tone to her voice. “Mine doesn’t stop time. It speeds it up.”

Another striking difference in the watch stood out, so obvious I wondered how I didn’t see it before. Hers didn’t have normal numbers but counted from one to seven before beginning again.

“How will this help you?” I asked.

She took a deep breath and looked at her packed bags. “This will get me past my death date. Once I’ve shown I can survive, an ambassador will take me home.”

Fear gripped me, and in turn, I gripped Gaia’s arm. “What are you doing?”

She pulled her arm away and clutched the watch to her chest. “Surviving.”

The watch was what she’d gotten from Illusion Point. This watch would propel her past her fated death day, but where would it leave me? “Have you thought this through?”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m tired of thinking. All I’ve done since I got here is think and read into people’s words and faces, and guess at who is on my side and how I can survive. I’m exhausted. I don’t want to think anymore.”

And then she jabbed the button on the side.

In shock, I watched the little hand as it began to turn, slowly at first, then whipping itself around faster. Once, twice, three times. Then too fast to keep track.

A wind howled through the room, clawing at our hair and ripping at our clothes. The hand spun around and around.

I dug my fists into the duvet beneath me as the wind whistled in my ears. Gaia’s lips trembled. She dropped the watch on the bed.

The hand spun on.

I tried to reach for it, but the wind thrust me backward, and objects in the room flung between us.

“When does it stop?” I yelled.

“I don’t know.” She buried her head in her hands and screamed.

Again, I fumbled for the watch. It spun and spun and spun.

Each time the hand passed the top was another week. If this worked the way Gaia thought it did, we’d lost months already.

“How do you control it?” I was frantic now, shaking Gaia to get her to focus on me.

Her head lifted and she cried out, “Don’t stop it! I need to let it go long enough that I outlive two years.”

The wind was a hurricane now, throwing chairs against walls and nearly deafening us. The watch sat unfazed on the bed as the world went into a panic around it.

The hand spun on.

I couldn’t breathe. This was taking too much time from me. I’d lose the chance to see my brothers and become a fae. She’d take me straight to my death.

“We have to stop it!” I screamed. Gaia put her hands over her ears.

I threw my gaze to the windows. Outside, flashes of light zipped across the sky in an indiscernible nature. Were those chariots? Or were they stars peeling from the atmosphere? Was time crashing by for everyone else or just us?

My hair flapped over my face and as I pulled it back I realized it was several inches longer than it should be. Panic swelled inside.

The watch spun on.